10 Best Slasher Movies Since 2000

A common complaint among genre fans is that modern slasher films substitute narrative speed for atmosphere and movie references for wit in an endless succession of boring facsimiles of films that never should have been remade in the first place.

While there’s no denying the logic in that argument – in which the Friday The 13th reboot serves nicely as Exhibit A – there have also been enough decent entries in the subgenre to convince you that the modern slasher is alive and kicking (and probably stalking a babysitter). Every generation gets its own Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Halloween, but if you want to watch them you need to look further afield than Texas Chainsaw 3D and Halloween: Resurrection.

We are talking about movies that take the old tropes and freshen them up not with gimmicks or a colon in the title but with a hint of wit, such as when 2006’s The Tripper dressed its killer in a Ronald Reagan mask and threw in a few well-aimed digs at the right. In Germany, the movie is known as President Evil, and enough said.

To follow, you will find the 10 slasher movies you should beg, borrow or buy, but under no circumstances steal. The bogeyman might get you.

Norway’s answer to the 80s slasher movies, Cold Prey (2006) followed five snowboarders who took refuge in an abandoned hotel that closed in 1975 when the owner’s son disappeared. Faster than you could say “Jason Voorhees”, a pickaxe-wielding psycho began chasing them through the snow..

In the tradition of Halloween II, Cold Prey: Resurrection offers “more of the same, only set in a hospital.” Having survived being stabbed with a pickaxe and thrown into a crevasse, the killer returns and once he gets his hands on some medical instruments, he goes on the rampage down the dark hospital corridors. Victims include The Rookie Cop, The Young Nurse and The Sympathetic Doctor, but at least the film comes up with an explanation for why the hospital seems deserted – like Precinct 13, it’s being shut down.

Directed by Mats Stenberg, Norway’s answer to Rick Rosenthal, Resurrection is bloodier, more violent and (if possible) more conventional than its predecessor, punctuating scenes of victims wandering around with it-was-only-a-dream false scares. Though derivative in the extreme, it’s still more fun than Rob Zombie’s Halloween II.